I understand you question now. Inspite of the private IP range in the Class B range is 172.16.0.0 till 172.31.255.255, having a private IP address on the internet is of little or no consquence at all. Most routers will drop packet which contain either source or destination address as private, or even both. Also, the range used by your company might have something to do with network policies used by your own network administrator. Perhaps it will be a better idea to pose this question to that individual who has decided your company network to be built like that.